


A Different Path

by potentiality_26



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Background Slash, Dwarf Courting, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Time, M/M, Multi, OT3, Sibling Incest, Some Suicidal Behavior, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-30 22:37:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3954415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Kíli knew he needed to convince Fíli that yes, he loved Tauriel- but he loved Fíli too and if he did nothing else for the rest of his life he would find a way to be with both of them, whether such a thing was customary among their kind or not.  Kíli also knew that he was only likely to get one chance to do it, so it was going to have to be perfect.  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>And as Fíli would have told anyone who asked, getting things right in one try was not one of Kíli’s specialties.</i>
</p><p>Kíli’s version of the events in <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3540197">An Accidental Engagement</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Path

**Author's Note:**

> Well it took me forever to get this together, didn't it? Anyway there's twice the angst (because apparently in my brain Fíli is way better at torturing himself than Thorin is) and a lot more smut (because there is smut and a lot of it at that) than in [An Accidental Engagement](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3540197). It's probably best to read that beforehand, all the same.

“It’s- it’s beautiful, Kíli.”

“And?”

“And what? I… I have nothing to add.” Fíli turned the bead over in his hands and the line that had formed between his eyes didn’t fade. He clearly thought there was something the matter with it, but it was obvious from his tone that he didn’t intend to say what- and Kíli knew from bitter experience that there would be no getting the truth out of his brother at this point. When Fíli dug his heels in he could be more stubborn than Uncle Thorin- except that unlike Thorin, Fíli got like that very rarely, and only when he’d taken it into his head to spare Kíli’s feelings in something.

This was not helping. Ever since he had started working on his courting bead for Tauriel, Kíli had been wracked by indecision. He wanted it to be perfect, but it was difficult to express everything he felt for her and everything he saw in her in a single object. Shards of Arkenstone itself wouldn’t shine as brightly as she did in his eyes. No carving of trees or vines or flowers could be bold enough to symbolize her strength and yet delicate enough to capture her grace. He had tried, regardless, and the result was- if Kíli said so himself- beautiful. But was it beautiful _enough_? Obviously Fíli had no intention of telling him.      

Fíli had spent most of the day helping Balin and the others negotiate with Thranduil's delegation on Thorin's behalf and was obviously tired. Kíli had decided that he would walk his brother back to his room and then meet Tauriel for a moonlight stroll, where he would present the bead. If only he wasn’t so nervous! He’d hoped the walk with Fíli would help to calm him down. In fact, it was doing the opposite.

Obviously Fíli sensed as much. He gripped Kíli’s hand. “There’s nothing wrong with bead. She will love it as she loves you. I just never thought that I’d see this day.” He ruffled Kíli’s hair. “My baby brother courting an elf.”

Kíli rolled his eyes and shrugged him off, as Fíli had obviously expected him to do. He was willing to play along, but he still saw something tight and miserable in his brother’s eyes.

“I’m fine,” Fíli promised. “Just overtired and a little sore.”

Immediately, Kíli felt terrible. He had decided he would wait to start his courtship- to even start making his gifts- until after Fíli was walking again, and he had done exactly that. His first gift- a set of arrowheads- had been accepted gracefully, and met with a very elven gift in return- a garden plot in her homeland where they would always be able to go undisturbed. After that, he’d started to work on the bead. If Fíli had relapsed while he was so distracted, Kíli would never forgive himself.

Fíli saw all of this dash across his face and ruffled his hair again. This time, he was gentler. This time, Kíli leaned into his hand. Fíli’s breath hitched, and then he sighed. “I really am fine,” he said. “It’s not as though I overdid it today- it’s just that trying to keep the peace with Thranduil is exhausting. Emotionally exhausting.”

“I should help more,” Kíli whispered.

“Because the elvenking just overflows with goodwill every time he sees you,” Fíli joked. His eyes lit with amusement, which was progress, but his face turned serious again all too soon. “I just want you happy. She makes you happy, so go to her.”

“You’re sure it’s fine?”

Fíli rested his forehead against Kíli’s. “I’m sure it’s perfect.” He knocked his head against Kíli’s just hard enough to make him wince, and went into their shared suite of rooms. “Go,” he ordered from the doorway.

“Yes, your majesty.”

If- when Fíli shut the door behind him- something about it struck Kíli as a little final, he ignored the feeling as best he could. He would check that his brother was all right in the morning, and all would be well.  

*   *   *

“You know, I do not think I have ever seen you this nervous,” Tauriel remarked. “Not even when you were fighting orcs.”

Tauriel’s amusement was written all over her beautiful face, and Kíli huffed at her. She had related what she knew of how her king's negotiations had gone that morning, and then told him all her best stories from home. Kíli had done the same in turn, but now he was out of things to distract her with.  

He took her on walks outside the mountain because he knew how much elves liked to have the sky over their heads, but the nature around Erebor wasn’t exactly beautiful. One day soon, green things would begin to grow again and perhaps it would be different then.  As it was, the best Kíli had been able to do was show her the lovely boulder he had found on one of his own walks.  It was large and flat and smooth and he and Tauriel could lie on it side by side and gaze up at the stars. Tauriel seemed to like it- but even she quickly grew bored.

She nudged her shoulder against his. “What is it?” she pressed gently.

“You. Uh.”

Her brow elevated.

Kíli spat it out. “You know that I have been courting you, don’t you?”

Tauriel grinned. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll admit that it wasn’t completely obvious at first, but you wouldn’t have been half so nervous about giving me such a lovely present unless it was of… greater significance, so I began to ask questions.”

“And when you gave me that garden…”

“It was meant to be an acceptance, yes. Why?”

“I just wanted to make sure before we went on to the next step.” Kíli opened his hand, which had been wrapped so tightly around the bead that it had had left marks on his palm.

She plucked the bead out and examined it. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “But what do I do with it, exactly?”

“I’m to braid it into your hair, if you’ll permit me.”

Tauriel nodded seriously, but her eyes were dancing. She sat up so that he would be able to sit behind her. It took a bit of maneuvering, but soon she lay back against his chest low enough to give him access to her hair. “Does the braid have special significance?” Tauriel asked as he worked.

Now that he had presented the bead and been accepted, Kíli again found her presence quite soothing. He breathed easy again as he joked, “I thought you asked around?”

“I did,” she said, smacking his arm. “That does not mean I know everything, however. Yours are a secretive people.”

“They are, aren’t they?” Kíli said wryly.

They were quiet for a moment, then, “The braids?” Tauriel prompted.

“We dwarves have braids for everything,” Kíli told her. “To identify rank and accomplishments and familial ties. This is a courting braid.”    

“And its purpose?”

Kíli had to think about that one. The braids were so central to dwarven culture that Kíli rarely thought about _why_ they did it. But having to explain such things was part of loving an elf, just as she so often had to explain the priorities of her own people to him. “Dwarven courting is very… public,” Kíli told her. “I don’t completely know why, but it is important that everyone know I am courting you.”

“And how will they know that _I_ am courting _you_?” Tauriel asked.

Kíli laughed. “You will have to make a bead of your own, and then braid it into my hair when it is ready.”

“All right,” she said. “Do I have a time limit to deal with?”

“No,” he told her. “We can’t move on to the next stage until it is done, but I don’t mind waiting. It isn’t as though we see each other every day. That would make it harder.”

She nodded. “I like the feeling of you braiding my hair,” she told him.

He grinned at her, and she kissed him. He groaned. Tauriel was delicate and genteel in most respects- or at least she would seem so to dwarf, who might not readily perceive how impish and fiery she was by elven standards- but she kissed the same way she fought, with a toe-curling and single-minded ferocity. Kíli kissed her back for as long as he could bear to, and then pulled away. “I’m trying to do this,” he said, brandishing the braid at her. “No distractions.”

“I will allow you to finish,” Tauriel said regally. “Once you are, it will be another story.”

Kíli flushed and snickered at the same time. He forced himself not to rush through the last of the braid. There was something else he needed to ask her, and worry cooled him down somewhat. “I suppose… I should have asked you about elf courtship.”

Tauriel huffed quietly. “There is very little to elven courtship. We love rarely, but very well, and when we do we act on it. The quantity of time I spend with you is courtship enough, by my people’s standards.” She was quiet for a while, then- “And I suppose I should have asked you if… we have done this properly. Are we meant to be intimate?”

“Well,” Kíli said. “We aren’t entirely supposed to be, but plenty of my people break that rule. My parents certainly did. Anyway, it’s too late now, isn’t it?”

Tauriel’s laugh echoed over Erebor.  

*   *   *

“How did it go?” came a voice.

Kíli startled in the middle of creeping to his room as quietly as he could. The rooms he and Fíli were using had a single receiving room flanked by two bedrooms, and sound carried from the receiving room to the bedrooms far too well. While Fíli was recuperating from the wounds he had taken in the battle, Kíli had gotten very proficient at moving through the rooms as silently as Tauriel, who had spent all the time she could spare helping him nurse Fíli back to health, did.

But all the sneaking in the world didn’t matter if Fíli had been dozing in one of the armchairs in the receiving room instead of lying in his bed. “What are you doing still up?”

“Couldn’t settle,” Fíli replied. “How did it go?” he asked again.

“Well,” Kíli replied, finishing taking off his belts. “Never thought I could be so happy.”

“C’mere,” Fíli said. In the light of the dying fire, it was difficult to make out his expression. Kíli crossed to him and Fíli took his hands. “Then where’s that smile?” Fíli asked.

“I worry about you,” Kíli replied. “And I feel… guilty.”

“Why?” Fíli’s mouth twisted. “Because I’m a bachelor for life?”

“Maybe a little,” Kíli said, though he privately doubted that was the reason. The idea of Fíli falling in love with one of his many prospects horrified Kíli- and that little hypocrisy was just something else to feel guilty about. Kíli did know what was mainly on his mind, though- “I wasn’t hurt in the battle because she was protecting me. Who was protecting you?”

“Someone,” Fíli replied. “The fall alone should’ve killed me.” He saw Kíli’s wince and touched his face lightly. “It’s passed now, and I’m all right. And I’m happy for you.” Fíli’s lips flattened into a thoughtful line. “You two go out hunting while she’s in Erebor, right?”

Kíli nodded.

“Well, if it’s all right with her, I’d like to come with you sometime. Get to know my future sister-in-law a little better, hmm?”

“If Thorin has his way it won’t come to that,” Kíli grumbled, but he loved the idea of being with both Tauriel and Fíli together when Fíli was actually able to walk and talk and be himself- unlike all the weeks he had spent with Tauriel just trying to keep Fíli alive. He wasn’t able to hide how happy the thought made him feel.

“Thorin won’t have his way,” Fíli promised. “I’ll make sure of it.”     

*   *   *

Fíli kept his promise. Of course, Thorin was still recuperating from the wounds he had received in the battle, and he seemed distracted besides. But Fíli engaged Tauriel more often, and he showed genuine interest in getting to know her better.

Tauriel, for her part, seemed equally pleased to spend more time around Fíli, and agreed that it was an excellent idea that he join them on their next hunting trip.

They left bright and early one morning, and Kíli had an uncomfortable feeling in his gut that he couldn’t quite explain. He wanted to spend time with Fíli and Tauriel together, and he wanted the two of them to get to know each other better, so why was he positively dreading the trip? He didn’t know, but he had a bad feeling he couldn’t shake.

Fíli and Tauriel talked casually about inconsequential things, clearly still feeling each other out, and Kíli listened with only half an ear until his attention was fully drawn when Tauriel asked what Fíli did in his free time.

“With Uncle Thorin still in bed as he is, I do much of the work he will do, and I don’t have a great deal of free time. What little I do tends to be devoted to cataloguing the gifts I’ve received so that I may return them.”

“Gifts?” Tauriel asked.

“Courting gifts,” Fíli explained. He was the crown prince of Erebor and exceedingly handsome at that- so, of course, Fíli had many admirers among Dain’s dwarves. The subject was not one Kíli liked to dwell on, and his primary comfort was that Fíli seemed to be considering none of them. Kíli listened as Fíli explained all this, though without stressing what a fine catch every one of those dwarves quite rightly believed him to be.

“And you refuse their… offers by returning their gifts?”

“That’s right.”

Tauriel was nodding in a way that puzzled Kíli. Certainly he was happy that his brother appeared to have no plans to marry just yet, but it was odd that Tauriel appeared to have taken it for granted. It was by no means guaranteed that Fíli would not meet someone who would steal his heart if given the chance. Kíli didn’t like to dwell on these thoughts either; though he wasn’t quite sure why, he hated the idea with a great deal of energy.

Kíli wondered at the reasoning behind Tauriel’s reaction, but he never had the chance to work out what it meant- because his bad feeling he had had all day was about to prove itself justified.

Tauriel paused, and Kíli was sufficiently caught up in his thoughts that it took him a moment longer to recognize Tauriel’s unnatural stillness for what it was than it would have if he had been alone with her and chatting easily. Eventually, however, he did recognize it, and he took her arm. “What do you hear?”

“Orcs,” she said. “Not many. Pursing us.”

It wasn’t much warning, but Fíli and Kíli both took her at her word, and indeed it wasn’t long before the orcs were upon them.

They were not scouts. Rather, Kíli guessed that they were a small group who had somehow escaped being killed in the battle and had been living in the caves nearby ever since. They were hungry and isolated, but they were also desperate, fighting to survive. It made them even more dangerous than orcs typically were.

In the heat of battle there was little time for Kíli to think about his motivations- but later, in hindsight, he would have to acknowledge that in this, his first battle since he had almost lost his brother, he had been a little more concerned about Fíli than he should have been. He concentrated his fire on any orcs who got anywhere near Fíli, leaving himself uncovered. Fíli, whose weapons were primarily short range and needed actual orcs upon him to do any real fighting, sent a glare Kíli’s way which turned quickly into hollow terror.

An orc had crept up behind Kíli. Under other circumstances, his distraction would have cost Kíli his life. But these orcs seemed intent on taking them alive- Kíli tried not to think about why, but it crept up on him all the same, _for food_ \- and so this one merely cracked him over the head with the hilt of a blade, and Kíli knew no more.  

*   *   *

Kíli woke slowly, his head pounding unpleasantly. It was a few moments before he could so much as see straight, but when he could he sat up and looked around. Judging by the darkness and the hard, dank rock beneath him, Kíli was in a cave of some kind, probably the very one he had guessed the orcs had been living in. He was in a roughly made cage, though what those orcs would do with him or when he didn’t know.

Had they also captured Tauriel? Fíli? He couldn’t guess.

He didn’t know how long he sat and wondered before he heard a step and stiffened. He grabbed for a loose rock and held it tight, hoping he wouldn’t have to use it. It would make for a pretty pathetic weapon in a fight with an orc.

Soon sound morphed into shape and the shape materialized into Fíli, who looked well enough. He crossed the distance to Kíli’s cage quickly.      

He stared at Kíli through the bars in silence for a moment. There was an intensity- a wildness- in his eyes that Kíli had never seen before. It scared him; not knowing what in his brother’s head was like not knowing what was in his own. “Cut the ropes and get me out of here,” Kíli said, voice unnaturally small, but Fíli remained completely still.

Then, so suddenly Kíli would have had no time to react even if he had known how to- which he didn’t- Fíli’s hand darted through the bars. His fingers threaded into Kíli’s hair and dragged him forward. And then Fíli kissed him, hard enough to bruise his lips. Kíli’s forehead was digging painfully into the bars between them, but he forgot all about them as Fíli’s other hand came up and cool fingers caress his neck and cradled his jaw. Fíli’s lips lingered on his and then Kíli felt Fíli’s tongue probe the seam of his lips. Kíli let him in without thinking, because what Fíli wanted Fíli got, and he felt Fíli’s tongue stroke sweetly along his own before the kiss hardened again. Fíli bit at Kíli’s lips and made of fist of his hair, hurting. Kíli made a noise of pain and Fíli dropped him, stepping back.

Kíli caught a flash of eyes like blue fire before his brother turned away.

“Fíli,” he hissed, but Fíli was already gone. Kíli slammed the flat of his hand against the bars. “Fíli!”

When no amount of shouting brought Fíli back, Kíli collapsed furiously against the wall of his tiny cell. For a few moments, Kíli’s anger at having been abandoned blotted the other thing Fíli had done from his mind, but sooner or later he found his fingers creeping up to his tender lips. His brother had kissed him. Kissed him like he was food and Fíli had been starving. Kissed him like he had dreaming of doing so for so long that the want now carried more anger than hope. How could he possibly have done that?

With nothing else to do, Kíli considered the question and found no answer.  

He was interrupted in these fruitless thoughts by the whisper of his name. For a moment, he thought Fíli had come to his senses and returned to him- but no, that was Tauriel’s voice. She crept gracefully toward him.

“Tauriel,” Kíli said, relief quickly overtaking faint, horrible disappointment. “I was afraid you had been captured too.”

“I was,” she said. “I was in a cage like this one a little down the way. I managed to get myself free.” She set about cutting the ropes which held the door to Kíli’s cell closed. “What about you? And Fíli- have you seen him?”

Kíli answered as completely as he could, and it was only once he finished relaying everything to Tauriel that it occurred to him that there was one part he really ought to have left out. But Tauriel was nodding, as if nothing about the part where his brother had kissed him instead of freeing him was especially odd. “Why would he do that?” Kíli asked her helplessly.

“Because he loves you.”

“Of course he does.”

Tauriel shook her head as she undid the last the ropes. “He is in love with you,” she amended. “He seeks to protect you.” She frowned and amended herself, “Us, rather. But also, I think, he seeks his own death. Come quickly, we may still find him.”

“Why?” Kíli whispered as he followed Tauriel. He felt cold inside at the thought of his brother dying.

“Because he cannot have you.”

“Have me,” Kíli repeated, still baffled. Tauriel was acting as though something he had never in his life considered- that Fíli… wanted him?- was a foregone conclusion.      

She cocked her head to one side. “He looks at you as though he would trade all the gold in your mountain- all the gold in the _world_ \- to have you for his own. Do you not see this? Do you never look at him?”

Kíli was so impressed by the very dwarven metaphor that it took him a moment to process what she said. “I look at him,” he protested weakly. “That’s just Fíli’s face.”

Tauriel arched an elegant brow, as if he had made her point for her.

It was true that Fíli had not always looked so gloomy, so… intense, as he had in recent months, but Tauriel would never have seen him before that sadness came over him. A terrible realization crept over Kíli: Tauriel had never seen him that way because she had not properly met Fíli until after Kíli told him that he intended to court her. Only moments later, an understanding of what Tauriel meant came to him. He thought there was nothing odd in the way Fíli looked at him because Fíli had looked at him that way for decades. But in truth, it was the same way Fíli had looked at him when he kissed Kíli in a way a brother never would. That look was possessive, hungry, jealous. That look was longing, and he hadn’t ever known it until now.

Kíli must have looked horribly like a landed fish in that moment. Tauriel’s expression contained traces of amusement, but more than that he saw dawning understanding and sympathy as she realized that he hadn’t known and what he must be going through now. She put a bracing hand on his arm. “You must put this aside for the time being,” she said.

“How?” he whispered.

“By remembering that you must. This party of orcs was a small one, but we still must be ready for whatever we find.”

“And to save Fíli?”

“And to save Fíli,” she confirmed.

Kíli nodded grimly, and followed Tauriel forward.  

What they found outside the caves, however, was ultimately a little anticlimactic. The handful of orcs who had taken them by surprise had been taken by surprise in turn by Fíli and were all dead. A part of Kíli found he wished he had seen his brother fight, for it must have been fiercer and more single-minded than usual for him to have killed so many on his own. But Kíli had very little time consider the matter seriously, because he had to find his brother.

He searched frantically, but it was Tauriel who found Fíli- buried under the last orc he had killed. Tauriel examined him. “He is hurt,” she said. “Unconscious- but alive.”

Kíli was relieved, but he knew he would not truly breathe easily until Fíli was awake and talking to him.

“We must get back to Erebor,” Tauriel said. “I will carry him.”

Kíli had to admit in his own mind that he didn’t care for the idea of anyone but him carrying Fíli- but he knew that Tauriel was the faster of the two of them, and so nodded his consent.

*   *   *

They returned to Erebor without incident, and the guards on the walls called for Óin and the other healers before they were even inside. Tauriel carried Fíli into his rooms and then departed, and Óin sent Kíli out of the room and told him he wouldn’t be allowed back in until his examination was over.

It gave Kíli plenty of time to finally truly think about what had happened.  The fact that Fíli had been actively trying to get himself killed. How Tauriel had told him that Fíli was in love with him like it was common knowledge. What Fíli’s lips had felt like on his.

Mahal, but he wanted Fíli to kiss him again. He wanted Fíli to look at him with want and actually know what it meant.    

But more than all of that he wanted Tauriel with him so he could talk to her about it, but Tauriel had gone to report to her king, and to Thorin, about the caves and their encounter with the orcs. She had promised to join him as soon as they were done questioning her, but there was no way to know how long it would be before then. And so he was left alone, sitting on the floor- he hadn’t even made it to one of the chairs before he collapsed- with his head in his hands as his world rewrote itself.

Finally Óin poked his head out. “He’ll be fine, lad,” he said. “He’ll probably wake in a few hours, and after a week or so of bed rest he’ll be back to normal again- although for my own health I would ask that the two of you stay out of trouble for at least a month.”

Kíli scrambled into Fíli’s rooms so fast he barely had time to nod to Óin.

Fíli looked deathly pale lying on the bed, and Kíli’s gut turned over. He’d probably never forget those first few days after the battle, when even the elven healers had told Kíli there was no way to know if his brother would live or die. Looking at Fíli now, Kíli relived those moments even as he reminded himself that Oin had said Fíli would be fine. He sat on the chair by his brother’s bedside and took his hand, pressing his forehead to the knuckles.

He prayed, over and over, that Fíli would wake and he would have a chance to repair whatever had gone so wrong between them.

Kíli didn’t know how much time had passed, but after a while he heard a soft rustling sound and recognized Tauriel’s footsteps without looking up from where he bent over his brother’s hand. He raised his head and met her eyes. “I love him, I do. I think in the same way that he does me. I think it grew in me, so quiet that I never felt it- the same way I never saw it growing in him.”

She nodded.

“But I still love _you_ ,” he whispered. “I don’t understand it. Dwarves have only One. What do I do now?”

Tauriel didn’t tell him. She merely sat, as she always did, on Fíli’s other side. She laid a soothing hand over Kíli’s head, and together they sat and waited.

*   *   *

When Fíli woke, he woke slowly. First he made a soft noise- something that sounded almost like Kíli’s name- and then his eyes began to flutter under his lids. Tauriel rested a light hand on Kíli’s arm and gestured to the door- she wanted to give them some privacy.

Kíli nodded, and Tauriel inclined her head and swept out.

When Fíli finally opened his eyes and took in his surroundings, Kíli recognized what he saw in them. Surprise and then sorrow and then grim assurance- as if Fíli was telling himself that he could try again, try to die again, some other day- flickered across his face. Just, Kíli understood now, as it had when Fíli first awoke after the battle.

Fíli forced a smile. “You and Tauriel are both well?” he asked as Kíli gave him a drink of water.

“Yes,” Kíli told him.

The smile finally reached Fíli’s eyes and he lay back. “Good.”

He was so gorgeous when he looked happy. Kíli felt like such a fool. Fíli was his brother and he was golden and beautiful and Kíli had thought so almost every day of his life. And Fíli was his _brother_ , so Kíli had assumed that all brothers found it so hard to tear their eyes from their sibling’s form. But he had been wrong about that, hadn’t he? He had been so very wrong, and Fíli had suffered all these years because of it. He hated the thought.

Because it was the best apology he could think of, Kíli lifted his brother’s hand to his lips and kissed the knuckles.

Confusion become remembrance became misery. “Oh, no,” Fíli breathed. “Kíli…”

“It’s all right.”

“It isn’t. I would never have done something like that unless I thought…”

“Well, you didn’t die, did you?” Kíli snapped. The notion that he had nearly lost Fíli made him angry, because if those days upon days not knowing if Fíli would survive had taught Kíli anything, it was that the idea of life without his brother was unacceptable. “You’re here, now.”

“Forgive me. I never wished for you to know.”

Kíli’s anger faded all too quickly, leaving him feeling empty and cold. He kissed Fíli’s hand again and flash of pure want in Fíli’s eyes warmed him.

Fíli removed his hand from Kíli’s grip gently. “I would take the knowledge from you again, if I could.”

“Why? I’m not disgusted, or- or angry…”

Fíli was shaking his head.

“Is that not what you feared?” It was the only thing Kíli could think of.

“No, brother,” Fíli whispered. “That is not what I feared.” He turned over on his side and would not look at Kíli again.

*   *   *

Thorin- supported between Balin and Dwalin- came to sit with Fíli for a time, and Kíli was relieved to finally have time to talk to Tauriel in a private setting at last. He relayed the scene in Fíli’s bedchamber and asked her what she thought. “If he didn’t think that I would hate him for his feelings, why did he hide them for me? Why did he never say?”

Tauriel considered the question as they sat on their boulder and gazed up at the stars together. She folded her legs up and he sat between them, back against her chest. “You understand, do you not, that it is because he cannot be with you that he has become so… careless?”

“Yes,” Kíli agreed, again feeling a flash of cold in his chest at the very thought.

“And so you wish him to know that he _can_?”

“Of course.”

“That is why.”

“I don’t understand.”

Tauriel murmured something in Sindarin that Kíli had come to understand was a sort of fond way of saying ‘idiot’ and kissed the top of his head. “When I told you that your brother loved you, you said, ‘of course he does.’ It follows that, even were you not in love, you would still love him, would you not?”

“I would.”

“And you would do anything to save him, whatever the precise nature of the feelings between you?”

“I would,” Kíli repeated. “Life without him… it doesn’t bear thinking about.”

“So imagine that you were in love with Fíli, and you believed that he did not love you in that way, but that he did love you nevertheless. Imagine that he had given his heart to someone else, and you supported him because you wanted him to be happy, but it hurt to watch him court another. And imagine that you threw yourself into danger a little more recklessly than you once did, because to die for him was the best ending to all this you could think of.”

“All right,” Kíli said reluctantly. It was a dark imagining indeed, and perhaps not as much of a stretch as he would have liked it to be. After all, even before this happened, he’d been uncomfortable imagining Fíli falling in love with one of his many admirers.

“Now imagine that he found out how you felt, and found out that you essentially wished to die because of those feelings. And imagine that on the tail of that discovery, he suggested that your love was, in fact, not as unrequited as you believed. Bear in mind that, in this situation, he has given no sign of such feelings ever before.”

“Because he didn’t know he had them,” Kíli insisted. “Fíli _is_ actually me in this scenario, right?”

“Yes,” Tauriel sighed. She called him an idiot and kissed him again.

Kíli thought about it. He thought hard about spending most of his life thinking he was alone in such feelings, and only now hearing it suggested that he was not. “I would be frightened,” he said at last. “I wouldn’t believe him.” His stomach turned over, remembering that just as Fíli was him in the scenario, he was Fíli- and that the discomfort and uncertainty he now felt was barely a fraction of what Fíli probably did. “I would think that he was pretending, maybe even fooling himself into believing, that he was in love with me too, when really he’d just do anything to keep me safe.”

“That is what he was afraid of, my love.”

*   *   *

The more Kíli thought about what Tauriel told him, the more sense it made to him. And the more sense what Tauriel told him made to Kíli, the more scared he was to do something to disrupt the status quo. Kíli knew he needed to convince Fíli that yes, he loved Tauriel- but he loved Fíli too and if he did nothing else for the rest of his life he would find a way to be with both of them, whether such a thing was customary among their kind or not. Kíli also knew that he was only likely to get one chance to do it, so it was going to have to be perfect.

And as Fíli would have told anyone who asked, getting things right in one try was not one of Kíli’s specialties.    

Kíli continued to visit his brother daily, but took to acting like nothing had happened, like Fíli had never kissed him and things had never changed. Kíli thought no one who understood the complexities of the situation would blame him for the decision.

Anyway, this seemed to make Fíli as happy as anything did, and Tauriel was evidently pleased with Kíli’s discretion.

Indeed, the only person it didn’t seem to make happy was Kíli himself.

He wanted things to be sorted out between himself and brother, and he didn’t want them to go back to the way they were. He wasn’t quite sure what their relationship would become once things were finished changing, but he was sure it would be better than before. He was sure there was a way for everyone to get what they wanted.

Tauriel and the rest of the elven delegation were often busy, leaving Kíli very much alone with his plans- but he did have one distraction: Bilbo and Uncle Thorin were courting properly at last! He had seen Bilbo give Thorin his own courting gift one evening, and even seen them resting very cozily together after the fact, and couldn’t wait to tell Fíli about it.  

He flopped down by his brother’s bedside. “You’ll never guess what I saw when I visited Uncle Thorin earlier.”

Warm amusement was written large over Fíli’s face. Kíli relished it, and the knowledge that- however awkward things currently were between them- they would always be brothers, and they would always be friends. “What?”

“Bilbo gave Thorin a courting gift.”

Fíli stared at him. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Of course I am,” Kíli said. Fíli’s surprise was not entirely pleasant, and that scared Kíli. “I know what I saw. Don’t tell me you’re unhappy.”

“I’m not unhappy,” Fíli promised, taking Kíli’s hand and squeezing it. “If you’re right, I assure you I will be very happy indeed. I just want you to be sure that what you saw was- well, what you think you saw. You know that not everyone is… of one mind about these things. We wouldn’t want a repeat of the bluebell incident, now would we?”

Kíli remembered the unfortunate situation in question and shook his head. “No, brother.” The bluebell incident was how the company referred to a time when a woman- who Kíli had found quite charming- had given him what among her people was a courting gift, and he hadn’t realized. In this situation, however, Kíli didn’t see how he could have gotten it wrong. Even gold-mad Thorin had been very unambiguous in his efforts to court the hobbit, and Bilbo had made his acceptance very clear.

It wasn’t long after that that Bilbo paid Fíli a visit and confirmed everything Kíli had seen, and Kíli forgot all about his doubts- but he didn’t forget the darkness he had seen in Fíli’s eyes.

*   *   *

Tauriel was leaving.

One good thing about everyone in the mountain knowing that Kíli was courting her was that they didn’t have to limit their… time together to out-of-the-way places outside the mountain anymore. Fíli had specifically told Kíli that it would be all right if he brought Tauriel back to his rooms, but Kíli didn’t want to. He didn’t want to rub his relationship with Tauriel in Fíli’s face, and sound definitely carried between their two rooms. So, he had found an unoccupied room for the two of them to… say their goodbyes from.

“Are you sure that that’s all there is to it?” Tauriel asked. She had already come twice, which for some reason always made her fiercer and more focused rather than lethargic or soft. She was working on him, using her superior height to kiss his neck while kneeling between his legs and fucking him with her fingers. He had made the mistake of mentioning his reasoning from not bringing her back to his rooms, and she had not forgotten it.

“What else could there be?” he asked, breathlessly.    

“I think maybe you’re afraid you’d like it, and since- whether he admits it or not- it would hurt him, you think liking it would be wrong.”

She changed the angle of her fingers, hitting particularly sensitive spot. He groaned. “What do you mean, I’m afraid I would like it?”

“You’re loud, beloved.”

To prove her point she made him cry out again. “I know,” he managed to say.

“Imagine he could hear the sounds I can get out of you.”

Kíli didn’t entirely want to, but in that moment it was impossible not to imagine it. The idea of his brother listening to him come was all it took to send him over the edge. Tauriel held onto him through the aftershocks, and then cleaned him up with a soft cloth. She kissed him lightly as he struggled to pull himself together.

When Kíli could speak, he reached out to her. “It really doesn’t bother you?” he asked, cupping her face in his hands. “That I love you both?”

She shook her head, but was silent for a time. She even stopped kissing him and held his eyes, obviously believing his serious question deserved a serious answer. “Elves to do not love readily,” she said. “But we can love more than once. When we fall in love, we take it very seriously. A separation from the one we love can even kill us, if we aren’t ready. There is precedent, of elves not only loving more than one person, but loving them both at the same time. Given what it means, for an elf to love someone, no one would try to force a separation.”

“Thank you,” Kíli said.

“Beyond that,” Tauriel added after a moment, eyes gleaming, “I cannot deny that the thought of you two together… interests me.” She looked at him wryly. “You’ve probably noticed that already.” A hard glint in her eye suggested that she wouldn’t be happy with him if he hadn’t.

“I did notice that,” Kíli said carefully.      

She grinned playfully.

They didn’t speak for a time, and when Kíli wanted to speak again he hesitated, not wanting to break the fond, comfortable silence. “Is it all right if I don’t see you off?” he asked.

Tauriel nodded and kissed his temple. “Of course.”

 *   *   *

Kíli did follow the elven delegation to the gate, but though Tauriel was undoubtedly aware of him she never made anything of it.

He watched from the walls until she was gone from view, and then he went to see Fíli.  

He found his brother gazing silently at the opposite wall, as bleak as he had ever seen him.

“What is it?” Kíli asked, sitting on the bed next to Fíli.

“It’s nothing,” Fíli said. “Nothing that should have troubled me so, anyway.”

“But it did trouble you.”

“Yes,” Fíli sighed. “You were right. Bilbo came to me today with a courting braid in his hair and asked about how to make one of his own.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “There’s no reason for that to make me sad.”

But Kíli realized all in a flash that there was, in fact, a perfectly good reason for that to make Fíli sad. After everything that had happened between them, Thorin was still courting Bilbo and Bilbo was still receptive. Thorin, despite his lapse in gold-madness and his general emotional ineptitude, was now successfully courting his One. But Fíli still believed that he himself would never be able to do so.

Kíli wanted to kiss him so badly it hurt. He wanted to hold Fíli and touch him all over, whisper words of love to him until he believed in his bones that he could have everything he wanted.

But he couldn’t do that, not yet. Not until he was sure it would work. So he simply patted Fíli on the leg as comfortingly as he could and let it be.

*   *   *

Everything happened very quickly after that, at least on the Thorin-and-Bilbo front. Bilbo braided his bead into Thorin’s hair on the same day Kíli and Fíli received news of when the caravan containing their kin from Ered Luin would arrive. The messenger had said three days, and soon the mountain was in chaos preparing for their arrival. Kíli himself was a mess anticipating telling his mother that he was courting an elf.

He and Fíli and Thorin met their kin at the gate. Bombur and Glóin, awaiting the appearances of their spouses, bounced slightly on the balls of their feet. Kíli resisted the urge to do the same.

As husbands and wives and children and siblings and cousins were reunited all around them, Dís climbed royally from the cart. Like Kíli, she seemed to be holding in her energy by sheer force of will alone. Her eyes glittered and her lips curled upward under her fine beard as she took in her sons and brother, and the homeland they had managed to reclaim.

She crossed to them quickly, pressing her forehead first to Thorin’s, then to Fíli’s. Kíli was last, as he always was, but he also got quiet words of worry that his brother never did.  

“You are well, my son?” Dís asked, cradling his face in her hand and looking at him searchingly. She could be so like Thorin when she was in full daughter-of-Thrain form, but there was a glint in her eyes that was all his mother.

“Yes,” Kíli said. “I even…” he choked on anything more.

“You even?” she prompted.

“It’s nothing. I only missed you, that’s all.”

Dís tossed her head regally, but her eyes shone with happy tears and Kíli had a hard time feeling guilty for his cowardice.

She made her way into the mountain, her sons and brother lingering by the gate.

“You did not tell her about the elf,” Thorin observed.

“And _you_ did not tell her about Bilbo,” Kíli replied with a sniff. He took great comfort in that, especially when Fíli rolled his eyes as if he didn’t have any stake in the business and followed Dís, leaving them to glare at each other alone.

*   *   *

The feast was a relatively tense affair for Kíli. Thorin obviously hadn’t managed to tell Dís about his intended any more than Kíli had told her about his, and so much of the attention and pressure was drawn off Kíli when Thorin took it upon himself to announce- in clear, kingly Khuzdul- his intention to marry Bilbo Baggins in front of the entire mountain.

Dís was not pleased to have been the last to hear. Kíli was all the way down the table from her, but he could hear his mother’s teeth grinding.

“After this,” Fíli told him softly, “you’d better tell her quick.”

“Yeah,” Kíli agreed miserably.

He and his brother managed to get into their mother’s good graces by the keeping Bilbo from fleeing the hall as the feast was winding down, giving her the chance to talk to- or, rather, intimidate- him. After that, she asked her sons to walk her back to her rooms, and Kíli’s instincts told him that this to be the best opportunity to bring up his own news- his instincts, and his brother’s elbow digging insistently into his side.    

“Mother,” he said as they reached her rooms. “I also have news to share.”

She stopped by the room, fixing him with a hard stare. “What is it?” she asked, taking him and Fíli in at once.

“I too am courting.”

His mother’s face remained impassive, but her eyes lit faintly. “Oh?”

“Her name is Tauriel,” Kíli spat out before he could lose his nerve. “She is an elf we encountered in the Mirkwood, and who assisted us many times afterward.”

Dís stared at him blankly for a moment, and then her eyes darted to Fíli and fixed on him. And Kíli understood why, and it lanced painfully through his chest. Their mother had known Fíli had feelings for him. She had thought Kíli wanted to speak of his intention to court his brother.

Fíli noticed her looking at him and something in his face shut down, but he straightened up and spoke to her, saying, “She is worthy, Mother. You will see.”

Dís’ eyes narrowed. “I suppose I will,” she said coolly, and went into her room without another word.  

Such a reaction had been expected, but it did not keep Kíli from reeling for a moment. And Fíli’s own sorrows- which Kíli finally understood to be many- did not keep him from doing everything he could to comfort Kíli as they returned to their rooms.  

“Tauriel will grow on Mother,” Fíli promised, pulling Kíli into his arms as he had when they were young the moment they were inside the receiving room.

“I don’t know about that,” Kíli said softly, sitting dejectedly on the floor by the fire.

“She just doesn’t know her,” Fíli told him earnestly, sitting down beside him and touching face. “She just resents her for being an elf.”

“No, she resents her because me being with her is making you miserable. Because she knows how you feel about me. Everybody knows, except maybe Bilbo, and me. Always me.”

“Kíli,” Fíli whispered, looking stricken. He pulled his hand back suddenly. It was like he’d let himself forget that Kíli knew how he felt now, and he had only been so easy around Kíli of late because of that.      

“I know you want to pretend I never found out,” Kíli whispered, knowing how miserable this fact made him was reflected in his voice. “But we can’t.”

“We can,” Fíli insisted, tone desperate. “We have to, Kee, listen to me-”

“No, you listen to me.” Kíli made fists of Fíli’s shirtfront, hauling him close. “I love you. I didn’t realize it could be like this.” He kissed Fíli’s eyebrow. “Don’t hold it against me.” He kissed Fíli’s cheek. “I love you.” He kissed Fíli’s nose, then his jaw, his other cheek and finally his mouth. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“Please,” Fíli breathed. It was difficult to tell if that was a ‘please no’ or a ‘please yes.’ Kíli didn’t let him say anything else. He kissed Fíli again on the lips. When they kissed before it had been so fast, so rough and sudden. This was sweet, Fíli’s mouth soft and hesitant under his. Kíli waited, giving Fíli a few moments to recover himself and push him away. When Fíli didn’t, he just gasped softly and kept still, Kíli pressed his advantage, teasing Fíli’s mouth open and tasting him properly.

Fíli groaned and pitched forward, catching himself by flinging a hand out and bracing it on the floor. Fíli raised his other hand and he cradled Kíli’s jaw with unbelievable gentleness even as he took control of the kiss. He kissed Kíli with a reverence Kíli could hardly imagine possible. His tongue stroked deep into Kíli’s mouth as if he wanted to caress every part of it, and then he would withdraw and pepper the most tender kisses all over his lips.

Then, just as abruptly, Fíli’s hand slid down to Kíli’s throat and pushed him back. “What are you doing, Brother?” Fíli’s tone was even, but his eyes were feral. He was panting and there was no mistaking how much he wanted to continue. He choked out, “Why are you letting me-”

“I would’ve thought that was obvious.” He chased Fíli’s mouth, but Fíli kept just enough pressure on his throat to hold him back. “Since you didn’t believe me when I said I wanted you, I thought I’d show you.”

“Actually,” Fíli rumbled. “You didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

“Say you wanted me.”

Kíli stared at his brother, wondering if that few weeks of planning and strategizing and watching as Thorin’s surprisingly easy courtship of Bilbo took a hammer to what was left of Fíli’s heart could have been prevented by three words. “I want you,” he breathed.    

Fíli growled and kissed Kíli again, his hands sliding into his hair and over his face and across his shoulders as if Fíli was trying to put them everywhere at once. He bore Kíli back onto the floor and Kíli spread his knees so Fíli could settle between his legs. It was like Fíli belonged there- like he always had- and Kíli smiled against Fíli’s mouth.

He twined his arms around Fíli’s neck and made fists of the back of his shirt, stripping it off when Fíli at last broke the kiss.

Fíli stayed incredibly still, only the softest hitch in his breath as Kíli touched his shoulders and his chest, tracing the lines of scars old and new. “I want you,” Kíli whispered.

Fíli found his mouth again and as they pressed together Kíli felt something hard pressing against his hip and hissed as his answering erection was fitted to Fíli’s thigh.

“Want you,” he repeated against Fíli’s lips

Fíli rocked against him in time with the thrusts of his tongue into Kíli’s mouth. Then, with obvious reluctance, he drew back, propping himself up on hands resting on the floor on either side of Kíli’s head. “What about Tauriel?” he asked.

“I’m in love with her,” Kíli said. “But I’m in love with you too.” His heart seemed to stutter in his chest as he waited for Fíli’s response, because he knew this might be a sticking point. He didn’t know what he would do if Fíli made him choose. Well, he did know. He would choose Fíli because he’d loved him forever and couldn’t bear to lose him now, and because Tauriel would understand. But he would never be completely whole.

But after a moment of consideration, Fíli nodded. “All right,” he said. Kíli, weak with relief, tried to kiss him, but Fíli dodged him. “And this?”

“What?”

“Did you talk to her about this? About me?”

“Yes.”

“And she’s all right with it?”

It took Kíli a moment to work out what his brother was asking. Elves didn’t have Ones the way dwarves did, and so it seemed obvious that Tauriel would be more comfortable with the notion of Kíli loving them both than Fíli was. And then he realized that what Fíli was asking was whether or not Tauriel had given him permission to be with Fíli even though he was also courting her. Then he thought about some of the nights he had spent with Tauriel before she left to return to the Mirkwood. She had asked him to tell her how he loved Fíli while they were entwined, and Kíli had found himself more than happy to do so. Kíli felt himself flush- but also harden further- remembering it.   “Yes. Very.”

Fíli grinned like the sun. Kíli pushed his fingers into Fíli’s hair and pulled his mouth down to meet his, kissing him furiously. Fíli’s weight over him was perfect except for one thing. He slid one hand down Fíli’s naked back to grip him by the hip and maneuver him into the right position. Fíli’s hard cock pressed flush against his.

When Fíli moaned and ground against him, it was the most beautiful sound Kíli thought he had ever heard. He kissed Fíli’s face repeatedly. “What do you need?” he asked.

Fíli hissed and bucked against. “You,” he whispered. “Need you.”

“How do you need me?”

“Touch me.”

Eagar to obey, Kíli hooked a leg around his brother’s thigh and flipped them other. He lay on top of Kíli and kissed his neck, grinning when Fíli sighed and breathed out his name. He ran slow hands down Fíli’s chest and sides, and then rolled onto the floor. From Fíli’s side, Kíli worked with deft fingers to strip off his trousers and smallclothes. When Fíli was finally undressed, Kíli needed a moment to simply drink the sight of him in. He was so perfect. “I love you,” his whispered, kissing Fíli’s shoulder.

“Love y-you,” Fíli replied, voice hitching as Kíli reached out to encircle his cock with his fingers. Kíli stroked him lightly and Fíli reached out, gripping Kíli’s hair and pulling him close. He knocked their foreheads together and breathed, “You don’t know what you do to me.”

“What do I do?” Kíli asked, speeding up his hand.

Fíli groaned and pulled him into a breathless kiss, thrusting into the tunnel formed by Kíli’s fingers. Kíli groaned himself when he felt something warm splash against his hand and realized that Fíli was coming already. He kept his eyes open the whole time, just to see the look of shocked bliss on Fíli’s face as he came.           

Kíli stroked him until it was over, and then went to fetch a cloth to wipe off his hand. It was not a comfortable trip; he’d never been quite so hard in his life.

When he returned to Fíli’s side, Fíli was sitting up, back resting against one of the chairs. He was still breathing hard, and there was something loose and happy in his posture that spoke to what had just occurred- but his eyes were glinting and they fixed unerringly on the bulge in Kíli’s trousers.

Kíli felt himself flush bright red.

Fíli grinned wickedly. “C’mere,” he murmured. “Let me take care of you.”

Something about hearing his big brother- who had always taken care of him- say those words in that moment made Kíli even harder. From the way Fíli’s grin widened, he had noticed. Kíli blushed even deeper, but if he was embarrassed he would happily be embarrassed forever if it made Fíli look so very pleased.

Kíli got down on one knee, cushioned by the carpet, and Fíli pulled himself up in order to kiss him thoroughly. Fíli kissed him until his toes curled, and he only broke the kiss to peel Kíli’s shirt over his head. Then he kissed him some more, dropping slow kisses down his neck and collarbone to his chest. When Fíli’s mouth fixed over his nipple, Kíli hissed and clung to his hair. Kíli was sure it must have been painful, but Fíli made a sound of approval and sucked hard. It sent lightning strikes of pleasure right down to Kíli’s cock, and he pulled harder at Fíli’s hair.

Fíli pushed his trousers and smallclothes down and then kissed down his stomach, and nuzzled the trail of hair that led to his cock. “Oh,” was all Kíli managed to say before Fíli grasped him by the base and pulled the tip into his mouth. The slick warmth of his tongue was stunning.

Fíli swirled his tongue over the slit and- repositioning his head slightly, swallowed Kíli deep. He thought, _Whose cock have you been sucking, Brother? Who’s touched you like this? Who do I have to kill?_ Happily, he said none of it- but, of course, he didn’t have the breath to do so. Fíli was _good_ at this, swallowing around him and making him feel so wonderful.

Slowly, Fíli pulled off. His voice a little rough, Fíli said, “You can pull my hair. And move your hips.”

Kíli swallowed heavily, staring at Fíli’s reddened lips. “Are you sure? I don’t need to-”

Fíli smiled. “I like it,” he said. “Use me.” He tapped Kíli’s thigh just hard enough to sting briefly. “I’ll do that when I need air.”

For a moment, all Kíli could do was keep staring. Fíli all-out grinned, and swallowed him down again. When Kíli could think again through the wet heat of his brother’s mouth, he did as Fíli asked and gripped his hair tighter. He held onto Fíli and fucked into his throat. Fíli choked a little, but also gave an appreciative moan that vibrated over Kíli’s cock.

Satisfied that Fíli really did like it, Kíli went a little faster, a little harder. His cock slid over Fíli’s tongue and into his throat and he gripped his hair. Kíli was peripherally aware of his deep his brother took him, how long, before he tapped his thigh.

Kíli released his grip immediately, and Fíli pulled back, gulping in breaths. He ran his tongue over Kíli’s cock, still panting, until he was dripping, and then he swallowed him down again. Kíli wasn’t sure if it was possible for this to be more perfect- his cock sliding into Fíli’s mouth, into his throat, Fíli moaning hungrily with every thrust.

But then Fíli’s other hand came up, cool fingertips teasing his balls. Kíli groaned and thrust deeper. Fíli’s fingers slid back further, brushing his hole. They were a little bit slick from all the saliva dripping off his cock and one finger slid up to the first knuckle with almost no resistance.

Kíli came so suddenly he didn’t have time to warn Fíli.

Fíli swallowed around him again and again, and when it was over he pulled off, coughing. “Well. That was unexpected,” he said.

“Sorry,” Kíli whispered. “So sorry.”

Fíli smiled. “It’s all right. I just didn’t think you would react so strongly to…” Kíli was very relaxed after coming, and Fíli’s finger pushed deeper into him.

Kíli groaned. “I want you to fuck me. I want it so much.”

Fíli swore under his breath and sat up, his mouth crashing to Kíli’s without warning. His finger slipped out and Kíli missed it immediately, but Fíli’s arms wrapped around him tight and that was almost as good.

He felt Fíli’s cock against his hip. “Fuck me,” he said again.

“I will,” Fíli whispered, kissing his face. “But maybe later?”

Kíli didn’t completely hate the idea of later. Fíli seemed, if anything, more focused after coming, just like Tauriel- but Kíli wasn’t. He felt lethargic and a little out of it- and he wanted to feel everything when Fíli fucked him. He still said, “But you’re hard again.” Obviously, Fíli really did like having his throat fucked.

Fíli smiled. “And I’ll keep,” he said. “Let me take you to bed. Let me hold you.”

“All right,” Kíli said.

Fíli helped Kíli up and tugged him into his bedroom, stripping off the rest of his clothes as he went. Kíli felt even sleepier once he was lying down, surrounded by his brother’s scent. Fíli held onto him and he drifted off.

*   *   *

Kíli woke half afraid that it would all turn out to have been a very vivid dream. But no- he was in Fíli’s bed, in Fíli’s arms, and Fíli was awake, looking at his face as if he wanted to commit every line to memory. “Hey,” Fíli murmured, when he saw that Kíli was awake.

“Hey,” Kíli replied.

Fíli’s mouth quirked. “Do you still want to try… what we were talking about?”

Kíli nodded. He still sleepy and boneless, but at the moment he thought his over-relaxation would be to their benefit.

Fíli held his eyes for a moment, and then crawled away to rummage through his bedside table. He withdrew some oil- a gift from Tauriel that Kíli had used to massage the healing scar tissue. When he saw that Kíli recognized the bottle Fíli flushed ever-so-slightly and looked rueful. He coated his fingers in the oil and crouched between Kíli’s legs. Kíli raised his knees give him more space and sighed as Fíli pushed a finger into him. “I did this, you know,” Fíli remarked, just a little too casually. “Touched myself just like this, thinking about you.”

Kíli groaned as one finger became two. It burned slightly, but he was too relaxed to be bothered by it. He had already been half hard, but the thought of Fíli finger fucking himself with this oil on his hands and imagining it was Kíli took him the rest of the way.

“You have done this before, haven’t you?” Fíli asked, working three fingers in and out of him.

It was the natural thing for Fíli to assume, given the way Kíli had reacted to having a finger inside him. “Yes and no,” Kíli said. “No one’s ever fucked me before.” Fíli looked surprised, and Kíli couldn’t exactly explain why to him, not when he’d never understood before now that- though he’d always found male dwarves as attractive as female ones- he’d never wanted anyone else to have him this way. “But Tauriel’s touched me like this.”

Something- not jealousy, exactly, but something strong and dark- slipped over Fíli’s face. “How much could you take?”

“Her whole hand, once.”

Fíli shuddered. He scissored his fingers and then, slowly, drew them out. “You ready?”

Kíli nodded so hard it hurt.

Fíli’s smile was tiny and unbelievably sweet. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to tell you how much I’ve wanted you,” he murmured. He released a little breath, caressing Kíli’s cheek. “My sweet baby brother.”

Possibly, that shouldn’t have made Kíli even harder, but it did. “Show me,” he breathed. He was awake now- awake and needy. “Show me.”  

Fíli nodded, and hitched Kíli’s legs up over his shoulders. He pressed inside him gently and oh-so-slowly. He wasn’t bigger than Tauriel’s fist- but the sensation was still different. The pressure was so hot, the sensation so perfect- but better even than that was the simple truth that, as Fíli slid completely home, they were as close as it was possible to be.

“You wanted this?” Kíli asked, when he finally got his breathing under control enough to do so. He didn’t know why, exactly, but hearing Fíli talk- hearing Fíli say how much he wanted this, wanted him- aroused him like nothing else.

Fíli turned his head and kissed Kíli’s knee. “Yes.”

“You wanted me this way?”

“I’ve wanted you in every possible way,” Fíli replied. He leaned forward to kiss Kíli, but he still didn’t move his hips. “I still do.”

His voice was heavy, and for a moment Kíli couldn’t have said anything if he wanted to. He breathed, “Move,” against Fíli’s mouth. Fíli kissed him and obeyed, drawing back and then pressing inexorably in again. “You want me to do this to you?” Kíli asked. It set him on fire, imagining making Fíli feel the way he felt now- possessed, safe, one with the dwarf he had loved all his life.

“Yes,” Fíli hissed, and pressed his tongue into Kíli’s mouth in time with the thrusts of his cock, probably to quiet him for a while. He drew back, panting, and kissed Kíli’s neck. “Do you make Tauriel talk this much?”

Kíli had wondered if thinking about Tauriel in a moment like this would bother him, but it didn’t. In fact, he shuddered and clutched at Fíli harder. “Ngh,” was all he could say at first, because Fíli gave a particularly hard thrust. “I don’t have to ask, she just does. But Fíli, I- I just love hearing what you want to do to me.”

Fíli pressed deep. “I want to claim every part of you.”

“Yes.”

“I want to make you mine.”

“Oh, Mahal- yes.” Kíli tangled his fingers into Fíli’s hair and didn’t hesitate to pull as Fíli gave a groan of approval. He pounded into Kíli relentlessly, and all Kíli could do was hang on. It seemed to last forever, but even that wasn't long enough. Fíli’s breathing and his thrusts became more erratic and he came closer to the edge, and when he did he reached between them, stroking Kíli’s cock.

Just a few strokes and he was done for, coming hard and pulling Fíli along with him. “Love you,” Fíli bit into his collarbone.

“Mine,” Kíli whispered into his hair.

Fíli stayed against him and inside him for as long as he could. “Yours,” he murmured.

*   *   *

“I had hoped you would have good news, my love,” Tauriel said as she walked with Kíli through the courtyard. They had decided not to risk putting anything potentially inflammatory in their letters to one another, and as such Kíli had not been able to report to her that he and Fíli had successfully become lovers. Kíli had settled for telling her all the news of Erebor’s rebuilding with twice the usual amount of enthusiasm in hopes that she would detect how very happy he was and know what it meant.

But Kíli was not as happy as he had been in the beginning. He had anticipated Tauriel’s arrival all the more desperately for it; he needed to her tell him what to do, for he’d had no one to talk to about it for some time. Bilbo had made himself so scarce after he met Dís that Kíli hadn’t seen him in days. He hadn’t even been able to tell Bilbo that- next to the reaction his own courtship had garnered- the one Bilbo had received had been downright welcoming. “I did,” he said. “I _do_.”

Tauriel raised an elegant eyebrow. “You… spoke to him?”

“I did.”

“And you… acted on what you spoke of?”

“We did.”

“Then what is the problem?”

There Kíli ran up against something of a wall. With the dwarves of the Iron Hills and Ered Luin and even the company milling about the courtyards and hallways, he could not speak freely. He could not tell Tauriel that things had gotten… strange.

Fíli avoided him, rarely speaking to him, never smiling, and only touching him when they were in bed. About the time spent in bed itself, Kíli had no complaints. The sex had perhaps gotten even better in the days since their first time- or at least it would have been so if it didn’t scare him so much. There was an undertone of desperation, a frenzied quality, to the way Fíli made love to him that made Kíli very much afraid that he had missed something yet again. Beyond that first time, Fíli had fucked Kíli only a few times. In general, he seemed to prefer it the other way around. Though Kíli loved having Fíli inside him, he didn’t mind this- but it still unsettled him, how Fíli would wake him up with fervent kisses, whispering ‘again, please, again’ like he wanted to fix the feeling of Kíli inside him in his mind forever.

“We… act on it regularly,” Kíli told Tauriel, and saw her mouth quirk as they made their way to his rooms. “But otherwise he… avoids me. And I sense something in him I don’t understand. These last few days… it’s not been what I expected. Not what it was when we… first came together. He was happy then, I know he was.”

“But he seems unhappy now?”

“Yes,” Kíli whispered miserably.

“And when you... first came together. What did you talk about?”

“About how I felt. And about you, a bit. That you knew of my- our- feelings and encouraged me to act on them.”

“And he knew I was coming today?”

“Yes.”   They had reached the rooms Kíli shared with Fíli at last. Kíli shut the door behind him gratefully and waited for Tauriel to take a seat in the sitting room. Fíli would be with Thorin meeting with the Mirkwood elves and wouldn’t be back for some hours if he came back at all.

Kíli had not slept in his own bed since he finally made Fíli believe he wanted him. He hated the thought of returning to it tonight with Tauriel, and that made him miserable. He was the one who wanted them both, after all- and they were being unbelievably accommodating. How could he flinch now? And it wasn’t that he didn’t still love and want Tauriel- he just didn’t want to hurt Fíli any more, and he didn’t want to do anything while there were still misunderstandings between himself and his brother.

“What’s going on?” he asked Tauriel.

“I do not know,” she said. She smiled at his look of shock. “I do not know everything. There are a few possibilities, though.” She frowned thoughtfully. “It is possible that while I was away, it was easier for Fíli to assume that he would be comfortable with you being with me for a time instead of him. You understand, he was used to having you to himself before I came along, and he had you to himself again until he remembered that I was coming back.”

“So he does want me to choose,” Kíli sighed. That didn’t make him happy either.

“Not necessarily. Just because he doesn’t want to share you doesn’t mean he _won’t_ \- but it will strain your relationship either way. There is another possibility, however. That he does not completely understand that you love us both the same.”

“I know I told him that.”

“I am sure you did,” Tauriel promised. “But whether he truly believes it is another thing. He might think that you wish to be with him while I am away, but ultimately prefer me. Or, he might think that you thought you wanted him as much as you did me, but will conclude that you were mistaken when you see me again.”

That did make a horrible kind of sense. If Fíli thought Kíli was going to end things, it would explain his behavior in the last few weeks. “What should I do?” he asked Tauriel.

“There is little you _can_ do until time proves him wrong on that score. There is something that I would like to suggest- but only if you’re comfortable with it.”

“What?”

“I believe that we might try… the three of us together. Do you understand?”

For a moment, Kíli didn’t. But then he imagined it- imagined lying in bed with Tauriel on one side and Fíli on the other. A pleasant heat flashed through him at the thought, but he had to ask. “Are you sure _you_ want that? Just because I love both you the same doesn’t obligate you to love us both the same.”

“And I don’t love you both the same,” Tauriel said immediately. “But. Your brother is… quite beautiful. And it is difficult to hear you speak of him without falling a little in love with him. I would like to try it, if you would.”

“I would. Mahal, I would.”

*   *   *

They planned to speak to Fíli that afternoon, after he left the negotiation table. But- as was too often the case when Thorin discussed trade with the elvenking- the negotiations broke up early and Fíli came back before they were ready for him.

He found them sitting on the floor by the fire.

Kíli saw the tension in Fíli’s shoulders as he looked at Tauriel, saw how at odds his body language was from the smile he pasted on his face. “I’ll leave you to it,” Fíli said. “But there’s something I want to say first.”

“We have something to tell you as well,” Kíli said. Tauriel’s fingers clasped his arm suddenly, and he knew it had probably been the wrong thing to say, but it was out now.

Fíli nodded jerkily. “May I go first? I’ve spent a long time thinking about it.”

Kíli’s gut clenched and he wanted to protest. He had a feeling he knew what Fíli wanted to say, and he didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to hear Fíli try to bow out gracefully when he knew as well as Kíli did that the last few days had been the best of their lives. He wanted to tell Fíli to let them go first, that he wouldn’t need to say what he’d planned once they had said their piece- but Tauriel’s grip on his arm tightened, so Kíli just nodded.

Fíli looked relived, and he turned to Tauriel. “This has been difficult for me,” he said, bowing his head to her. “I suspect you know why.”

She nodded.  

“But I wish you to know that I like and respect you. And that I am honored to share his heart with you.”

It took Kíli a moment to realize that Fíli wasn’t breaking it off, and when he did it was as though Tauriel’s arm was the only thing holding him up.

“I am likewise honored,” Tauriel said. “And I wondered if you would also share his bed with me.”

It was Fíli’s turn to be surprised. “What?”

“I know it is not the way of your people- but I like and respect you as well. I have enjoyed the time I have spent with you. And, if all of us found it agreeable, we might… come to a new arrangement.”

Fíli was silent for a time. “You mean… the three of us, don’t you?”

She nodded, slowly.

Fíli’s eyes snapped to Kíli. “You would like this?”

“If you would,” Kíli said, and watched his brother carefully for smallest sign that he wouldn’t. He saw Fíli swallow heavily, traced every movement of his throat with his eyes, and couldn’t begin to guess if that was a point in their favor or against it.

“I would be willing to try,” Fíli said.

Though it wasn’t exactly the resounding agreement Kíli might have hoped for, it was something. He nodded, swallowing himself.

Fíli reached out a hand to Tauriel. “Would you like to go to bed, my lady Tauriel?” he asked, formally.

Tauriel smiled crookedly but happily, and placed her hand in his.

Fíli helped her up and led her into his room. A little dazed, Kíli followed.

Tauriel and Fíli both sat on the bed, closer than they would have before today but not quite touching. Both of them looked like they weren’t quite sure how to begin, and both of them looked to Kíli for help. He wished they wouldn’t, but he knew it was only logical. This wasn’t completely about him, it couldn’t be- but it was because of him that either of them had ever got the idea. If he didn’t take the next step, how could he expect them to?

Kíli climbed onto the bed and kissed Tauriel first. It was a quick, _how are you, are you all right with this?_ kind of kiss, and she smiled against his mouth and he knew she was. Then he turned to Fíli and kissed him.

Fíli was still and a little stiff under his mouth for a moment- but then something softened in him and he kissed Kíli deep but with an ease that had been missing from their touches of late, and Kíli melted into him, so happy that Fíli was no longer convinced he would lose him at any moment. When Fíli drew back at last, Kíli whined and chased his mouth, reaching for him still.

Laughing, Fíli took his hands, squeezing his fingers- and then he looked at Tauriel.

She blinked at him, as if she hadn’t expected Fíli to remember her so quickly. It seemed Kíli had succeeded in breaking the ice- and that was for best, because Kíli wasn’t sure he could even speak after that kiss.

“I want to see you kiss him,” Fíli said. “And touch him.”

Tauriel cocked her head to one side.

Fíli flushed slightly but didn’t back down. Kíli was amazed by- and almost jealous of- how well the two of them already communicated without words. “You know what he likes,” he said.

She nodded. She leaned over Kíli and kissed him, her hand sliding down his chest as she sank into his mouth. Kíli loved it when Fíli touched him, he really did, but Tauriel did know things Fíli hadn’t yet had a chance to learn- like how very sensitive the skin around his rib-cage was, and how much he loved the light drag of fingernails over his nipples, his hipbones, his thighs. She could make him tremble with the barest of touches.

It was one of Kíli's favorite things about his lovers- that they were so different. Tauriel was so… elven, so delicate and skilled and clever, and Fíli was so dwarven, all passion and power and the adoration of one who had loved Kíli for as long as he had been alive. Kíli could only hope he was responsive enough to let them know how thoroughly they both pleased him their different ways.

Tauriel’s hand trailed downward to brush over Kíli’s cock through his trousers. He held himself still, not wanting too much too soon.

“Kiss him too,” Kíli requested against her lips.

Tauriel turned and- without releasing him- obeyed. The combination of the feel of Tauriel’s fingers stroking skillfully along his length and the sight of the two people he loved most in the world kissing each other, clinging to each other like life-rafts on a river as red and golden mingled together, had Kíli mewling in minutes.

Fíli broke away first, but he was panting. “You should leave him be for a moment,” he said. “He gets so out of it. After.”

Tauriel nodded and withdrew her hand, and the two of them shared a tiny smile of shared knowledge. Kíli would have been annoyed at being talked over if he wasn’t so happy. He wanted nothing more than to watch them together some more, and the cooling off period he would need to last any reasonable length of time would give him an excellent opportunity to do that.

He turned to Fíli. “Would you undress her?” he asked. “For me?”

Though he was addressing Fíli, he turned to look at Tauriel, making sure she was comfortable with the proposition. From pleased way in which she nodded, she was quite comfortable with it- and indeed liked how he was handling things.    

Fíli undressed Tauriel with surprising reverence. He did it slowly, teasingly, for Kíli’s benefit, but the way he devoured Tauriel with his eyes was purely for himself, and Kíli smiled even as he had to sit on his hands to keep from touching himself. Fíli ran tender hands over the skin he bared, tracing the sharp lines of her collarbone, the soft curves of her breasts, and the gentle slope of her belly. He was clearly operating under the assumption that Tauriel was as fragile as she looked. Fíli would learn otherwise, eventually. And they had time for eventually.

When she was fully naked, Fíli’s eyes kept darting to the thatch of hair between her legs. When Fíli’s tongue darted out across his lips a second time, Kíli decided to again take the initiative. “Would you like having her in your mouth as much as you like having me?” he asked.

He took the soft groan Fíli gave as an affirmative, as did Tauriel. She made a soft, satisfied sound as she crouched over Fíli and he settled between her legs. Kíli couldn’t wait for Fíli to learn what Tauriel was like after she had come already, but he quickly forgot his anticipation in favor of enjoying the sight currently before him. Tauriel’s head was thrown back, baring an expanse of pale neck. Fíli’s own head, golden and perfect between her thighs, bobbed gorgeously. Judging by the noises Tauriel was taking, Fíli was as good at this as he was at sucking cock. He hardly seemed to need to breathe. It was spectacular.

Tauriel came, fingers clenching in Fíli’s hair. She would be sensitive for a while yet, and she pushed him off, right at Kíli. Kíli kissed him obligingly, tasting Tauriel on his tongue.  

He felt Tauriel’s eyes on them the whole time, and when he drew back she had lain back, still watching, her mouth curving into a pleased smile. When Fíli met his eyes, Tauriel’s smile broadened. “Thank you,” she said to him. “That was wonderful.”

Fíli flushed faintly, but smiled.

She crawled over to him, completely unembarrassed by the fact that she was, thus far, the only one naked, and said, “Now you.” She put her hand on his chest. “What do you want?”

Something about the way she looked at him, something about the way she touched him, made it seem like Fíli and Tauriel were the only ones in the room. Like Kíli was there and not there at the same time. It was strange, making Kíli feel more like a voyeur than a participant. Fíli said, “I want to have him inside me. I love that.”

Tauriel nodded gravely.

Sitting on the sidelines as he did, Kíli felt strangely conflicted. On the one hand, the absolute truth in Fíli’s voice was so very… flattering. On the other hand, he was surprised and a little wrong-footed. He’d expected this to be so different from everything they’d done before, and yet here Fíli was, asking for something they had done, many times. He wasn’t sure, even in his own mind, whether a part of him had expected that to remain private, just between the two of them, or whether he had just thought Fíli would want something else now that he knew he could have anything. Whatever the reason, he was surprised.

But things were different now, as much as Kíli thought this would be going over old ground. Tauriel was here, and she changed everything. Because she said, “Do you want us to take care of you?” to Fíli-

-and Fíli’s breath hitched, and he practically sighed out, “Yes.”

Well. That was something, wasn’t it?

Kíli was still a little at sea, and judging by Tauriel’s smile she knew it. She divided her attention between them for a while, undressing them both between kisses. Kíli was naked first, and by then he was able to help Tauriel, pulling off the last of Fíli’s underclothes while looking up at the awed- and slightly overwhelmed, but happy- look on his brother’s face.

Tauriel settled between Fíli’s legs, and Kíli smiled when he understood what she intended. He had opened Fíli up for this many times, but he knew he was nowhere near as good at it as Tauriel. Fíli was in for a treat.

Kíli dug around in the drawer by Fíli’s bed and handed her the bottle of oil.

“He touched himself using this,” he told Tauriel.

Tauriel’s mouth quirked with amusement and approval. “Thinking of you?” she asked, as if Fíli wasn’t there.

Fíli gave a soft, annoyed grunt. “Not just you, Kee,” he said.

Kíli frowned at him, suddenly envisioning Fíli fantasizing about every dwarf in the mountain. He hated the thought.

Fíli saw Kíli’s expression and smiled ruefully. “I was pretty shocked the first time it came into my head, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been. All the time I was recuperating, Tauriel was with me almost as much as you. I’ve known you my whole life and yet it only took a few months to start thinking of you as a matched set.”

As ever, Tauriel understood first. “You imagined me as well.”

“Both of you. Yes.”

“You mean you wanted-” Kíli crawled over to Fíli and knocked his head against Fíli’s forehead hard enough that he winced. “Why didn’t you say?”

“You loved us both, I figured you should have us both. Didn’t mean she’d want me.”

“Why not?” Kíli demanded. “Of the two of us, you’re the catch.”

“I’ve never seen it that way.”

Kíli was silent for a moment, flattered and disbelieving at once. Before he could protest, Tauriel spoke up regally, “I feel I have gotten lucky in both respects.”

Fíli grinned at her, obviously very happy that she’d made peace, and for the first time Kíli truly and utterly believed they could make this work. The three of them really did fit- no one felt like an interloper. Decades of history between him and Fíli, and yet Tauriel slotted in as though there had always been a space for her.

She squeezed some oil onto her hand and started at Fíli’s shoulders, massaging him, and then she worked down his chest. Kíli almost- almost- felt useless, but it was too good to watch a master at work for him to regret it in the slightest.  

Tauriel took her time, as she always did, working her way down to Fíli’s cock and stroking him before working between his parted legs and slowly opening him up.

It seemed to take hours before Fíli panted out, “I’m ready,” and Tauriel nodded her agreement. She withdrew her fingers carefully and moved to crouch at Fíli’s side and while Kíli took her place between Fíli’s legs.

“I’m ready,” Fíli said again. “Please.”

Kíli nodded and eased into him, and this was different too- how could it not be? When he was the one to open Fíli up, the need to be inside him- to come- had already built to a nearly unbearable pitch before he had even slid home- but this was different, easier. Tauriel had done the hard part and all there was for him to do was take his time, enjoy the tight heat and slow give of Fíli body. From the sigh Fíli gave, he liked this too.

Once he was completely buried, Kíli continued to go slow, drawing back and pushing deep as gradually he could. Fíli held onto him, one hand gripping his shoulders tighter and tighter with every move he made. Kíli thought there would probably be nail marks in his skin for hours; he loved the idea so much.  

“Tauriel,” Fíli choked out after one particularly deep thrust. He grabbed for her hand and gripped it tightly, looking into her eyes. “I-”

She said, “Would you like to be inside me?”

Kíli couldn’t help the way his hips bucked at that, but he bit his lip and held himself still so he could watch them. Fíli blinked with eyes that were wide and almost completely black, and he said, “Yes,” like it was torn out of him.

Tauriel leaned close and whispered her plan in Kíli’s ear.

As slowly and gently as he could, he pulled out of Fíli. “It’ll be worth it,” he promised as Fíli moaned at the loss. He kissed Fíli, and with Tauriel’s help, got him up on all fours. “Ready?” he asked in Fíli’s ear.    

“Yes,” he panted.

Kíli pushed into him and then kept still, giving Fíli a moment to readjust. “Good?” he asked.

“So- so good.”

“Good,” Kíli agreed, and gripped Fíli’s hips, hanging onto him as he slowly sat back on the bed. It took some doing, but he got Fíli settled on his lap, giving Tauriel better access to him. A less intended consequence was that he was buried deeper in Fíli than he’d ever been before, and both of them were left gasping, gripping for any part of each other than they could hold on to.

Kíli couldn’t imagine anything more perfect. He wanted to be between them so much it hurt, but at the moment Tauriel was very focused on Fíli, and Kíli wouldn’t change that for the world. He wanted nothing more than to help Fíli see, as he now saw, how well the three of them would work together. He could imagine nothing achieving that end better than this.

Tauriel straddled Fíli’s hips and gripped his cock, lowering herself on him. If Kíli turned his head just so, he could watch Fíli’s face, see the awe and adoration written all over it. When Tauriel was completely settled on his thighs- Mahal, she hardly weighed anything at all- Fíli kissed her, kissed her like he’d never held anything more magnificent in his arms in his life. And Tauriel kissed him back like she’d never felt more worthy of being adored.

Fíli wasn’t going to last long, but then Kíli couldn’t very well expect him to. With Kíli thrusting up into him and Tauriel bearing down, the sensations must have been unbearable. Fíli kept kissing Tauriel and Kíli reached around him, finding Tauriel’s clit and massaging in the way he knew she liked best. Her hips bucked, working her against Kíli’s hand and against Fíli too, and when she came Fíli came with her and their cries were muffled against each other’s mouths.

Kíli wasn’t far behind, his own orgasm drawn from him by the way Fíli’s body tightened around him as he came. He kissed Fíli’s shoulders, shaking and worn out, and for a while they all remained tangled up in each other before they slowly draw apart.

Fíli and Tauriel worked together to clean each other and Kíli off with a cloth, and when they all settled- still breathing hard- Kíli found himself between them so naturally that Kíli knew it was only a matter of time. For a while, they all held each other in silence.

“Well,” Kíli said at last. “I think we can safely say that worked.”

Tauriel’s bell-like laugh glided over Fíli’s deeper chuckle

*   *   *

It came time for Tauriel to leave all too soon, though they were all prepared for it. The last few days had been the happiest Kíli had ever known, and he hated that Tauriel had to leave again, and that she probably always would. Even if they all married- which none of them were sure they could- they would always belong to different worlds.   But he knew that wouldn’t stop them, not when Tauriel asked that they braid one another’s hair before she went, and when she asked she had not one bead but two cradled in her hand, the one she had been making for Kíli, and the one that she had made for Fíli before she’d even been sure either of them would want this.  

Kíli saw the awe on his brother’s face when he saw the bead and understand what it meant. “I have one for you as well,” he told her, his voice very soft. “But I had planned to wait. I am not yet able to give you a proper courting gift.”

“It’s all right,” Tauriel assured him. “What has passed between us has been gift enough.”

With no further ceremony, she sat cross-legged on the floor by Fíli’s bed and waited. Fíli perched on the bed above her, and Kíli joined him, sitting on the other side next to his own braid as he watched Fíli’s progress.

“Are you sure that’s how you want to do it?” Kíli asked. “I thought-”

Fíli smacked his hand. “You did yours.” Kíli could see the happy laughter behind his eyes. “This is mine, and if you can’t keep your hands off it you can go stand over there.”

Kíli started to laugh himself. “Just trying to help, big brother.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are,” Fíli replied, the sarcastic tone he was going for greatly undermined by the humor in his voice.

Between them, Tauriel was silent, but if Kíli looked down he could see the amusement in her eyes.  

They were interrupted by a knock on the door, but even so none of them quite grew serious. Fili called to whoever was on the other side to come in, and Bilbo shuffled into the room. Even though he had been invited in, Bilbo looked unusually uncertain as he watched them. “Um,” he said. “I should come back later.”

“No,” Kíli protested immediately. He hadn’t seen the hobbit in days, though he’d been a little too caught up in Fíli to do anything about it. “Come in.”

“We’d be honored if you stayed,” Fíli said.

Kíli smiled at him. Given the unconventional nature of their relationship, he and Tauriel had been happy to forgo the old tradition of having a witness. He had assumed that with the addition of Fíli it would be the same, but obviously he still wanted to do it right if at all possible. He could be so sweetly old fashioned that way.

Fíli made quick work of the rest of his braid. “There,” he said.  

When Bilbo told Tauriel how lovely she looked, she was uncharacteristically uncertain. She looked to Fíli, and when he made his agreement plain, she kissed him, and then Kíli a moment later. He was so happy that he forgot Bilbo entirely, and gripped her hand. “Let me show you,” he said, and hauled her to his own room, where there was a floor length mirror that would truly do her justice.

He wrapped his arms around Tauriel’s waist, resting his head against her side so that he could see what she saw. She looked beautiful- more than beautiful, frankly, and he hoped she knew it.

Whether or not she did, Tauriel nodded in a satisfied manner.

Though he couldn’t hear what was said, Kíli could hear Fíli talking with Bilbo in the other room. “I wonder what they’re talking about,” he said.

Tauriel smiled crookedly and took his hand, lacing their fingers together. She rested her forehead against his and murmured, “We should get back.”  

When they returned, whatever Fíli had talked to Bilbo about had left him in a contemplative but happy state, and he and Tauriel immediately descended on Kíli, braiding either side of his head under Bilbo’s unusually wide eyes.  

*   *   *

Fíli, of course, volunteered to see Tauriel off when the elves at last left again. Dís joined them. A few days earlier, Fíli had also been the one to volunteer to inform their mother of the latest development- an act for which Kíli would be forever grateful.  She had yet to make her opinions felt to Kíli, and she continued to keep her own council.  She did not speak throughout the journey to gate- Kíli knew as much because he crept along behind them at a safe distance- but merely sized Tauriel up. When they arrived at the walls, she simply nodded once and swept away.

“Was that approval?” Tauriel asked Fíli, sounding amused.

“For now, yes.”  

Tauriel looked vaguely impressed. “She can be more regal than King Thranduil when it suits her, can’t she?”

Fíli nodded.

“Well,” she sighed. “I must go.”

Fíli nodded again. “Kíli will miss you. _I_ will miss you.” Fíli said this last as though he had only just realized that it was true. “He would tell you so himself, but he’s terrible at goodbyes.”

Tauriel laughed. “I had noticed.”

“Take care of yourself.”

“Of course,” she said, and kissed Fíli quickly. “Take care of each other.”    

She bowed her head a final time and swept away. Once she was gone, Fíli found his brother unerringly, plucking him from behind the cart where he was hiding. Fíli didn’t scold him- he just pulled Kíli close and held him tight. Fíli really would miss her, Kíli realized. He was missing her already. “She’ll be back soon,” Kíli assured him.

“Yes,” Fíli agreed. “That will have to be enough for now.”

Kíli nodded and held his brother close. That would have to be enough for now- that, and the fact that she was leaving with two dwarven courting braids in her hair, one for each of them, and that she would be back.  


End file.
